4,192
4,192
Lawrence Miles
Our football season started early
tossing the ball on Hawthorne Street
but when I went to make a catch
I gashed my arm on a broken car antenna
and had to rush home
I ran to the bathroom for iodine
While the living room television
had the Reds game on
I had just missed Pete Rose
breaking Ty Cobb’s all-time hit record
and while I bandaged my arm
there stood Pete at first base
To an ovation by the crowd
My arm soon healed
but the scar was there for a long time
and every time I looked at it
it would take me back to Hawthorne Street
and the tears in Pete’s eyes
Many years later
I saw Pete signing autographs
in a Las Vegas sports shop
And it did not dawn on me
to show him the scar and say
“Hey, Pete!
I got this scar the moment you got hit 4192!”
I’m sure the first words out of Pete’s mouth would have been
“Twenty bucks for an autograph, pal!”
and I was down to my last nickel
since I was in Vegas
you know.
Lawrence Miles is a poet living in White Plains, NY. He has recently been published in All Your Poems Magazine, Molecule and The Fringe Poetry Magazine. Additional work can be read at lawrencemiles.substack.com.
Elliot Lin is a college student who spends their free time musing about sports and how they shape or reflect identity. You can find their other baseball-related illustrations here, on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram.
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